Image Details

COURTESY UZI LEIBNER, THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM; PHOTO BY GABI LARON; DRAWING BY SARA HALBREICH

SHINING CHANDELIERS. For more ambient light in synagogue spaces, early Jews used chandeliers. Such lighting implements consisted of metal fixtures suspended from rafters or other architectural elements and fitted with glass cups or basins filled with oil. This fourth-century example from the synagogue at Khirbet Wadi Hamam in the Lower Galilee once included a multi-handled glass bowl hooked onto a copper-alloy fixture topped by a plaque that depicts a seven-branched menorah.